Missandei, too, was failed. As one of the only two central people of colour in the entire series, her exit – her fridging, frankly – at the hands of a white woman was nothing short of woeful. She deserved so much more.

And that's not all. In 'The Last of the Starks' alone, the writers stuck two fingers up at Brienne after using her to service Jaime's internal struggle regarding his twisted devotion to Cersei. Then there was Sansa Stark's conversation with The Hound about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Ramsay Bolton, Littlefinger, and Joffrey, and the way in her suffering was, in the words of actor Jessica Chastain, used as "a tool to make a character stronger".

Following Rhaegal's death at the hands of Euron, Dany abandoned all reason to charge at him head on, endangering both herself and her last remaining dragon. Rather than attack from behind at speed, showering the fleet and their men in flames, she acted on impulse. Reason abandoned her.

That also does Jaime a disservice, implying that his love cannot possibly be as great and all-encompassing as Cersei's because she is their mother, and he is merely their father. He remains pragmatic, Cersei is deranged.

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The writing staff on Game of Thrones has always been male-dominated, with only four episodes in the show’s history being credited to female writers. Season eight is written and directed entirely by men (only one woman, Michelle MacLaren, has ever directed Thrones), although there has been at least one woman in the writer’s room, Gursimran Sandhu, this time around.

I forgave the show for its cruel treatment of Sansa a season ago, when it became clear that her story was one of survival rather than victimhood. But Thrones rarely passes up an opportunity to remind us of her rapes. It undermines a character who has refused to be beaten or defined by her suffering, especially when, in the latest episode, she credits her abuse for transforming her from a ‘little bird’ into what she is now. As Jessica Chastain pointed out on Twitter, it was Sansa and Sansa alone who transformed herself into the strong and savvy leader she is – not the men who abused and manipulated her. If the writers don’t understand that, how can we trust them to tell Sansa’s story properly?

In its early years it might have lured in the typical male fantasy crowd with sex, violence and alpha-male characters like Ned and Robb Stark, Robert Baratheon and Jaime Lannister, but before you knew it a woman was on the Iron Throne, her main challenger was also a woman, and Westeros was stuffed full of female assassins, knights, wily politicos and Dame Diana Rigg.